I was deeply moved by some guy from the city of Kovrov. Unfortunately, I never even saw him myself — I just came across a tweet saying that during a stop in Kovrov, a man came up to our cheerful train and unfurled a sign reading "Alexei, Yulia, we are with you". So here is this person in Kovrov taking a sheet of poster paper, making a sign, and heading to the station late at night just to show it to a passing train — fully aware that there is a 99% chance no one will even see it. Maybe that is the most important thing of all. People like that from Kovrov. You do not need any other motivation to keep working as long as, in some proverbial Kovrov, there are people like that addressing some proverbial Alexeis and Yulias (who could be anyone — from the "Bolotnaya prisoners" (people prosecuted over the 2012 Bolotnaya Square protests in Moscow) to a persecuted regional journalist). And not only do they exist — there are more and more of them. Once again, huge thanks to everyone who traveled from Moscow to Kirov to support me on our "train on fire." It was fun and really felt like something halfway between "Occupy Abai" (a Moscow protest camp of 2012) and the film The Diamond Arm.
(Lenta.ru's report on everything — from the train to the trial) And to those who came from other cities — the geography was impressively broad: St. Petersburg, Voronezh, Izhevsk, Samara, Saratov, Perm, Kazan. Come again. To those holding one-person pickets in other cities
To those who came yesterday to Novopushkinsky Square to support everyone being persecuted for political reasons.
(photo report in Novaya) And in general, thanks to everyone supporting the struggle against the occupiers and the forces of evil. Now, smoothly on to our news. It is not only the Guy from Kovrov who reassures us that we are doing the right thing, but also the guys from Tekhnichesky Lane. This morning, while I was on the train, I was greeted by this bit of news from the Investigative Committee:
As a result of the actions of the Navalny brothers, who imposed intermediary services that were entirely unnecessary, the company MPK suffered damages of no less than 3.8 million rubles. These funds were transferred to the accounts of the Main Subscription Agency and then, according to investigators, stolen by the Navalny brothers. http://www.sledcom.ru/news/293037.html They put out the release as early as 7:45 in the morning. Same old story as before. The Navalny brothers roam the country, forcing people to sign contracts, and the prices are inflated. The Investigative Committee follows the trail of the criminal brothers and rescues everyone who has suffered from inflated prices. I would make an excellent sales agent: I walk into an office, make an offer that cannot be refused, and walk out with a contract signed at an inflated price.
The first image in Google search results for "sales agent." The situation with MPK is a sad one, of course. Just the last two days in Kirov I had been talking to journalists about them, using them as an example of a small business that was not intimidated by pressure from the authorities. Both Yves Rocher, which was the basis for the first criminal case, and MPK were clients of Glavpodpiska. And both were visited by the FSB and the Investigative Committee, who told them: write statements saying that the "Navalny brothers" caused you financial harm. Big Yves Rocher filed a statement right away, while small client MPK told the investigators to get lost, saying, "What kind of nonsense is this? What harm? We are not writing any statement." It was a telling story: the fat, rich foreigners got scared immediately, while the small, vulnerable fellow citizens did not. Those fellow citizens were hammered with document seizures, searches, and interrogations, but they held out. But yesterday evening they said: that's it, we cannot take it anymore. And today a case was opened. That is the story. Sadly, not at all an original one for a Russia run by Putin's thieves. By the way, this is also a sign that things are going very badly for them in the first case — the Yves Rocher one. It is one thing to force a statement out of someone; it is another to calculate and substantiate damages. If a company received services for three straight years and was completely satisfied with those services, it will not be easy for it to explain why the entire amount transferred under the contract is supposedly the "sum of the stolen funds." That is why they badly need a second victim, so the case does not "fall apart." Well, okay. By now this does not make much of an impression on me. There were four cases; now there are five. Not much difference. I will endure it. Someday we will settle accounts for all of it at once. Because the Guy from Kovrov will win anyway.